This will be just my third year growing watermelons. In 2017 I did Georgia Rattlesnake from seed someone gave me. The plants didn't do much. Last year we got all the melons we wanted from just two hills. No more seed left so this year I'm trying Ali Baba and Stone Mountain, one hill of each. I only grow two hills because that's all the room I have and if they make, all the melons I want.
The first several melons were beautiful but a lot of the later melons grew somewhat deformed, fat on one end and kind of narrow on the other end. Has anyone else run into this or know what causes it?
Critters... coyotes (caught 'em on the game cam) ate some melons in the yard near the plants and toted some off way back to the woods, across two acres! Strong jaws. I had no idea coyotes ate watermelons until I did some research and found out how destructive they are for commercial watermelon growers. This pic also shows one of those "pinheaded" melons:
To protect the last few melons I staked a few tomato cages over them:
